To Wake the Giant

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To Wake the Giant Page 33

by Jeff Shaara

“Sir?”

  “Where do you get ‘moonlight’ out of this? These are literally the symbols for ‘after midnight,’ but the whole expression translates to an activity scheduled to begin in early morning. The coding indicates a heavy cruiser, which I’ve been following since they put to sea on twenty-four November. They will probably reach their destination by tomorrow morning, which would put them close to the Philippines. That makes a little more sense, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Cabot was appropriately chastened, said, “Of course, sir. I’ll be more careful.”

  “You’ll do more than that. We have no time for sloppiness in here. I’ve had to look over your shoulder a half dozen times this week. Can’t have that. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do better.”

  Rochefort thought, He doesn’t take a dressing-down worth a damn. Now he looks like a whipped puppy. But damn it all, we can’t be screwing around in here. No patience for that, none. The others had glanced his way, returned now to their work. He had tried to offer encouragement to them all—the old pat on the back, could even toss out a good joke once in a while—but most of the time, any joviality he might feel was overshadowed by his impatience. Dammit, he thought, they know I’ve got a short fuse, and I’m not a nursemaid to these jokers. Nobody’s being especially nice to me.

  He could see frustration on some of the faces, weariness on others. A long day, he thought. We’re just now breaking the November signal codes. I’ve got no patience for wasting time.

  * * *

  —

  The air conditioning was haphazard at best, which only added to the dismal environment, but Rochefort had no use for complaints. The workplace for Rochefort’s team was called the Dungeon, appropriately named. It was a large room with no windows, down a full flight of stairs beneath one of the primary headquarters buildings for the Fourteenth Naval District. Officially, Rochefort’s department was designated HYPO, the navy’s way of specifying the location as H for Hawaii. The Dungeon was the best facility the navy seemed willing to offer the cryptanalytic experts, what Rochefort knew was a typical disregard for the men who labored to decode foreign messages.

  The Dungeon’s working conditions seemed to Rochefort to be a perfectly appropriate symbol for the way Naval Intelligence was regarded by most of the admirals throughout the service. As far back as Rochefort could recall, the decoding and cryptography offices had been treated as a stepchild to the more “important” commands, an attitude that extended all the way to the highest levels in Washington. Even now, the Office of Naval Intelligence, headed by Captain T. S. Wilkinson, had lost a turf war for most of its usual responsibilities, a short-lived feud with Admiral Richmond K. Turner, chief of the Navy’s War Plans Division. As a result, the intel officers, who should have been receiving and interpreting all manner of potentially useful intelligence, had seen their duties gutted by an egocentric admiral who seemed more interested in enlarging his own footprint.

  Even worse, Rochefort couldn’t avoid an instinctive itch that Washington was processing and interpreting considerably more intelligence information than was being revealed to any intelligence office in Hawaii. He had no real evidence of that, and it wasn’t the sort of thing to complain about to a superior, certainly not to the admirals who oversaw his department. But the messages Rochefort knew about, those received by Admiral Kimmel and the commander in chief’s own intel officers, seemed to be bare-bones at best. It would be foolish, and for Rochefort potentially career-threatening, to suggest that Washington was purposely withholding anything. But Rochefort had always relied on his instincts. The itch was something he couldn’t escape.

  Since Rochefort’s arrival at Pearl Harbor in May, he had experienced the frustration that any substantive intelligence uncovered by his own crew would likely be digested only as far up the chain as the senior commanders in Hawaii. After that, it might as well have been tossed in the sea. It showed the chronic disregard for the intelligence service in general, whether in Washington or anywhere else in the field, as far back as Rochefort’s service in the Great War. Some of that came officially from Henry Stimson, now secretary of war, who had long ago declared it inappropriate for anyone, even a nation potentially under threat, to open anyone else’s mail. Secretary Stimson’s attitude was driven downward, all through the ranks, until finally it had become accepted fact that assignment to intelligence was a dead end to any kind of advancement. Rochefort had accepted this as the price for doing work he truly enjoyed. With a variety of successes decrypting Japanese codes as early as the 1920s, Rochefort had seemed to find his place in a command that others continued to shun. Unlike many of the higher-ranking officers around him, mostly a fraternity of Naval Academy graduates, Rochefort had joined the navy straight out of high school. Yet his instincts for decryption had propelled him to the rank of commander. He knew, as did those who knew him, that as long as his work bore useful fruit, no one would care where he’d gone to school.

  Once established at Pearl Harbor, Rochefort found a new challenge. Since no one had any interest in looking over his shoulder, no one above him seemed to care just who had specific authority over the results of his work. Rochefort’s superior was technically Captain Irving Mayfield, who answered to the commander of the Fourteenth, Admiral Bloch. But Bloch rarely offered input of his own, simply passing along any meaningful information to his superior, Admiral Kimmel. Along the way, there were various other department heads who had some sort of hazy authority over Mayfield’s department and Rochefort’s team, though few seemed to pay much attention to what Rochefort was actually doing. To Rochefort, that was just fine.

  The most effective and desirable connection that led directly to Admiral Kimmel’s office was the fleet’s overall intelligence officer, Commander Edwin Layton. But there was more to Rochefort’s relationship with Layton than a shared interest in cryptology or code intercepts. Earlier in their careers, both men had spent considerable time in Japan, and like Rochefort, Layton spoke fluent Japanese. If there was a hint of envy that Rochefort felt toward his friend, it was only that Layton had developed a friendship with the man who was now the commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. It required patience from Rochefort, not his most developed talent, to hear Layton tell the story he’d heard dozens of times, how Layton had so often defeated Admiral Yamamoto in games of bridge.

  Both men knew that Layton did not quite have Rochefort’s raw talent for his job, and so Layton had come to rely on him more than Layton’s superiors might respect. But as long as their intelligence was accurate and useful, no one would object. Since he had taken command of HYPO, Rochefort’s attention had been focused primarily on radio traffic originating from Japanese ships, the only effective way to estimate their locations from so far away. Though his team had clear interpretations of barely 10 percent of the coded transmissions, his skill at identification could fill in many of the gaps.

  More important, he had become familiar with the distinct patterns of messages from many of the ships, and could identify some of the ships by the rhythm of certain keystrokes or other tendencies of the particular radio and telegraph operators. Again, much of that was Rochefort’s instincts, not something he could teach to his crew. But he had trained them as much as possible to consider the fragments they could identify as part of a greater puzzle. As time had passed, they were gaining proficiency. Even without a clear interpretation of the bulk of the Japanese messages, Rochefort had developed the ability to locate most of the Japanese navy’s most powerful ships. And, as any fleet officer would know, if you locate a battleship or aircraft carrier, you’ve located a supporting cast of smaller ships to go along with it.

  Weeks before, without any scraps of useful intelligence from Washington, Rochefort had been able to confirm what most of the highest-ranking officials were suggesting, that a great part of the Japanese fleet had set sail from their ports in Japan, and were on the move sou
thward toward Indo-China.

  * * *

  —

  The guard knocked on the metal door, and Rochefort pointed, the closest man rising up quickly to respond. Rochefort saw the guard, the man peering in as though expecting to see some sort of demonic behavior in the dingy grubbiness of the room.

  Rochefort said, “What is it?” There was nothing friendly in Rochefort’s words.

  “Sir, there is a driver here, with orders from Commander Layton to transport you to CINCUS. Commander Layton will be waiting there.”

  “Why the hell don’t we ever have any meetings down here? We’ve got a coffee pot that’s as good as theirs. I’m a little busy.”

  The guard seemed puzzled, still peering into the dull light, and Rochefort said, “Relax, son. Jesus, doesn’t anybody around here have a sense of humor?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Rochefort scanned the room, saw eyes on him, then on the guard. “Yeah, I know. You’re all trained to frown. Anybody’s caught laughing around here, they ship him to Wake Island. Okay, son, you’ve delivered your message. I’ll be upstairs in a minute.” He shoved the most current papers into a folder, rose up from the steel desk, said, “I’ll be back quick as I can. Nobody goes to get a beer. Keep working. We’re damn close to figuring out the codes for the last period, and I want them completed.”

  Nobody responded, and Rochefort moved out, the guard leading the way up the steps. He passed by the offices of a variety of fleet departments, typewriters and telephones, then outside, saw several cars parked in the narrow lot. He searched for one with a driver, moved that way, opened the rear door himself, slid inside.

  “Okay, what’s up? Somebody sink the fleet without telling me about it?” There was no smile from the driver, a face Rochefort had seen before. “You know, you could have opened the door for me. If I was a damn admiral, you’d be out running around here making sure I didn’t slam my pinky in the door. How fast can you drive? I have work to do.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  The car lurched forward, a hard acceleration out onto the road. Rochefort saw the driver’s eyes watching him in the rearview mirror, said, “Fine. That’ll do. But keep your eyes on the damn road.”

  HQ, COMMANDER IN CHIEF PACIFIC FLEET, PEARL HARBOR—FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1941

  The car slid to a halt, Rochefort’s stomach rolling over. He reminded himself, Don’t razz the driver. He stepped unsteadily from the car, adjusted his uniform, tucked the folder under one arm. He glanced back at the driver, who nodded to him with a smirk.

  Rochefort couldn’t avoid the last word, said through the car window, “There’s a word for cocky-assed sailors who piss off officers. It’s called Guam.”

  The car drove away with none of the recklessness that had brought him there. He saw Layton standing outside, talking to a pair of young officers. There was obviously nothing sociable about the conversation, unusual for Layton. The two younger men moved off quickly, into a car of their own, and Layton said to Rochefort, “Let’s go inside, Joe.”

  Rochefort followed Layton quickly up the flight of stairs to Layton’s office. Rochefort glanced toward the one window, a clear view of the open water. It was an odd decision to some, Admiral Kimmel moving his office away from his flagship, the USS Pennsylvania. The word had gotten around that Kimmel had been annoyed by the inconvenience of his communications flowing from ship to ship. The submarine base was, to Kimmel, a much more practical solution. If any of his officers thought it strange that the admiral of the entire fleet would establish himself in a land-based office, no one mentioned that to Kimmel.

  Layton waited at the opening to his office, and Rochefort slid by him, sat in his usual chair.

  “You’re in a crappy mood, Eddie.”

  Layton settled in behind his desk, said, “We’re getting a raft of information about the negotiations with the Japanese. It’s more of the same. Washington seems to know things we don’t, a whole bunch of things. I’ve sent letters to Naval Intelligence, to Admiral Turner, and I’ve asked Admiral Kimmel to push Admiral Stark. I would think they’d keep us informed of anything involving the Japanese, since we’re pretty much on the front lines out here. So far, all I’ve received is this.” He held up a letter. “Commander McCollum, head of the ONI’s Far Eastern Division. He writes a long message in babble-speak that could have been shortened to one damn word: NO. They’re decoding Japanese messages that we aren’t receiving, and they won’t tell us why, and they won’t tell us what those message are. How pissed off am I supposed to be?”

  Rochefort looked at the letter. “Should I bother reading that?”

  “I told you what it said. Five hundred words of double-talk, ending with a negative response.”

  “How’s Admiral Kimmel reacting to this?”

  “You can ask him yourself. But that’s not why you’re here. What can you tell me about the location of the Japanese fleet?”

  Rochefort wanted to laugh, but Layton’s expression didn’t change.

  “Jesus, you’re serious. The whole damn fleet?”

  “What do we know? What can we tell Kimmel?”

  Rochefort opened the folder, but he knew it wasn’t what Layton was asking for. “Here’s our latest intercepts. They changed their radio addresses and service identification codes on 31 October, on schedule. That gives us another five months or so to map out who’s who, and we’re well along with that. We’ve just about completed identifying their battleships and cruisers, along with most of their submarines, which, for reasons I don’t really understand, are far easier to decode. It’s as though the Japanese don’t care if we know the location of their subs.

  “The best that we can determine is that the fleet we previously pinpointed moving to Southeast Asia is still headed that way. The Japanese don’t seem to care who knows about it. I suppose, down there, no one’s in their way. There are also the transport ships, most likely with cruiser and destroyer escorts moving toward the southern tip of the Philippines, passing to the south of Basilan Island. Again, either they don’t seem to care that we know or they aren’t aware that we know, which I find hard to believe—as many spies as there are on Hawaii, count at least that many in the Philippines.

  “I’ll tell you, picking up the main radio transmissions from the bases in Japan is like hearing a mother calling out to her kids. We just have to figure out how many kids she has, and where the hell they are.”

  “What about the battleships?”

  “Most are with the fleet moving south. Likely, there is at least one with the Philippines convoy. Those we have not accounted for are likely in port in Japan. That makes sense, since there is no imminent danger of a major naval battle, and we know they’re concerned about their fuel supplies, thanks to the oil embargo. We have also determined that the Japanese submarines are on the move, some of those around their bases in the Caroline and Marshall Islands and along the most heavily traveled shipping lanes, where we would expect them to be.”

  Layton stared down at his desk. “I have a problem here, Joe. My people are picking up scraps of intel from local sources, some of that handed over from the FBI, Special Agent Shivers. But Japan’s a long way away. That’s what frustrates me about the information Washington is sending us. It’s as though they’re holding back, as though what they’re doing is the only thing that’s important. It’s just damn aggravating that they act like it’s private, that only Washington is privileged to know what the Japanese are talking about.”

  “I’m doing the best I can, Eddie.”

  “You know as well as I do that it’s not just about machines and earphones. Your people do a hell of a job, putting together useful information from a five-second crackle on a Jap radio.”

  Rochefort could feel an odd tension in Layton, said, “Thanks for the compliment, Eddie. But you didn’t send for me just to bitch. What the hell’s going on?”
r />   “I have to let the admiral tell you, if he’s inclined. Don’t ask, just do what you’re told, answer his questions.”

  “Jesus, I’ve met him plenty of times before. He’s not all that hard-assed.”

  Layton reached for a phone, dialed a pair of numbers. “Yes, this is Commander Layton. I have Commander Rochefort here, from HYPO. Is it a good time? Thank you. We’ll be right up.”

  Layton moved around the desk, a hand now on Rochefort’s shoulder, then led the way.

  * * *

  —

  The admiral’s office was strangely spartan, nothing to indicate who held court there. The chairs were all filled, and Rochefort recognized the faces of those who belonged there, including Captain “Poco” Smith, Kimmel’s chief of staff. There were others, including some men Layton seemed to know well, and one army officer, a major Rochefort didn’t know.

  Kimmel acknowledged Layton with a quick nod, offered another toward Rochefort. But Rochefort could feel that this was more than the usual briefing about intel and fleet movements. Rochefort and Layton stood back against one wall, Kimmel speaking toward them now.

  “Sorry there aren’t sufficient chairs. My wardroom on the Pennsylvania was a palace compared to this place. I’ll make this as brief as possible. Some of you have already been informed of the communication I received late yesterday from Admiral Stark. I have a copy here, and if you haven’t seen it, read it now. The communication does not leave this office. Poco?”

  Smith took the paper and gave a quick glance at the men seated. He moved toward Layton, handed him the paper, said, “Hand it to Commander Rochefort when you’re done. The rest of us have already seen it.”

  Layton read, seemed to stare blankly at the paper for a long moment. He handed it to Rochefort.

  “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning…”

  Rochefort finished reading, absorbed the words, tried to interpret what lay between the lines, the code breaker’s habit. He looked at Layton, waiting for a reaction, but Layton remained stoic, his eyes on Kimmel, who said, “Commander Rochefort, return the paper to Captain Smith. All right, everyone here has read this message, written or at least sent by Betty Stark. Hell, it could have come from the War Department, or, hell, maybe from the president. And there’s the army’s version, sent to General Short by way of General Marshall. Major Fleming has delivered us a copy, which most of you have seen, courtesy of General Short. I had a meeting late yesterday with the general and a number of senior commanders to discuss the differences in the two messages. The army’s version is not quite as, well, dramatic as this one.

 

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